Experimental approach to develop six interrelated projects aimed to treat presently hopeless patients with heart disease: (1) Revascularization of the ischemic myocardium via the venous route if the arterial is not possible and the use of acute circulatory assist devices to sustain life, particularly transapical left ventricular bypass; (2) adaptation of one-half of our most successful artificial heart to be used as a left auxiliary ventricle for research and future clinical application; (3) development of total artificial heart to replace the irreparably sick heart with main emphasis on air driven hearts with intrinsic response to Starling's Law. Initiation of other designs such as an electrohydraulic artificial heart; (4) the hematologic and coagulation effect of (1), (2) and (3) will be studied and hopefully the compensated coagulopathy that still exists will be minimized. Localized area of thrombosis will be defined and eliminated by better design of heart and valves; (5) pathophysiological and anatomical changes will be recognized and eliminated to obtain even longer survival of experimental calves than our present record of 94 days with total artificial heart. Better energy transport will reduce the chance of infection; (6) polyurethanes are the preferred polymers; others may be adapted. Their durability in vivo will be studied and their surfaces will be optimized by glow discharge, albumin grafting, etc. Our goal is to gain information to build artificial hearts for future implantation in man.